NewsOne Minute: Study Finds 4% of Inmates On Death Row Are Innocent

More than 4 percent of inmates sentenced to death in the United States are probably innocent, according to a study published Monday that sent shock waves across the anti-death penalty community. What the researchers call a “conservative estimate” about the number of wrongfully convicted death row inmates is more than double the percentage of capital defendants who were exonerated during more than three decades that were studied. That means innocent people are languishing behind bars, according to the study. Read more.

Corporate sponsors started to distance themselves from the Los Angeles Clippers Monday after a tape surfaced over the weekend of the team’s owner Donald Sterling allegedly making racist remarks. In a statement provided to The Huffington Post Monday, Carmax, a used car chain, confirmed it would cut ties with the team, ending a nine-year partnership. Virgin America confirmed to HuffPost that it would end its sponsorship with the Clippers, noting that the company continues to “support the fans and the players.” A Mercedes-Benz spokeswoman wrote in an email to HuffPost that the company “has moved to cease its sponsorship of the Clippers effective immediately.” Chumash Casino Resort told Businessweek it was “withdrawing [its] sponsorship” of the team. Read more.

Roughly 50 Rutgers University students are staging a sit-in at a school administration building in New Brunswick to protest the school’s decision to invite Condoleezza Rice to speak at the university’s commencement next month. The school’s Board of Governors voted to pay the former secretary of state under President George W. Bush and national security adviser $35,000 for her appearance at the May 18 ceremony. Read more.

The Miami Heat let the players in the Los Angeles Clippers organization know that they’re not alone. In an act of solidarity, the defending NBA champions reproduced the Clippers’ silent protest against team owner Donald Sterling. After emerging from the visitors’ locker room at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte on Monday night, LeBron James and the Heat players huddled up at the center of the court. Just as the Clippers had done on Sunday when they took the floor in Oakland, the Heat players all ditched team-issued, branded shirts to reveal that they were wearing warm-up shirts inside out to obscure the team name and logo. Read more.

There is fear, worry, concern and outrage across Nigeria as more than 200 girls were kidnapped from their boarding school dorms in Chibok nearly two weeks ago. Chibok, in northeastern Nigeria, is a mixed Christian and Muslim town in the part of the country that is predominately Muslim. Many suspect that the attackers and kidnappers belong to an Islamist extremist group named Boko Haram. Though the mass kidnapping has dominated national news conversations, there are many who feel as if the government and military are not invested in freeing the teenage girls and crushing an increasingly dangerous insurgency. Read more.

State and local law enforcement need to do a better job of tracking and reporting hate crimes so that the public can “fully understand what is happening in our communities, and how to stop it,” FBI Director James Comey said Monday. Comey told an Anti-Defamation League summit that some jurisdictions fail to report hate crimes in their communities, while others say that none occurred — “a fact that would be welcome if true.” Read more.

On fire since the success of HBO‘s True Detective this year, director Cary Fukunaga has lined up his next project I’ve learned. Teaming with John Legend and his Get Lifted Film Co. partner Mike Jackson, Fukunaga will adapt and helm a big-screen version of The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, And The Real Count of Monte Cristo for Sony. Get Lifted have optioned the Pulitzer-winning 2012 biography written by Tom Reiss that chronicles the life and adventures of French Revolution-era General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. Jackson and Ty Stiklorius will 2014 Winter TCA Tour – Day 12014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Graydon Carter – Arrivalsproduce the pic with Fukunaga’s Parliament of Owls. Legend, his manager Troy Carter and Sony’s Josh Bratman will serve as executive producers. Read more.

Paul Robeson Jr., who worked to preserve the legacy of his father, the actor, singer and civil rights advocate, since his death almost four decades ago, died on Saturday in Jersey City. He was 86. The cause was lymphoma, his daughter, Susan Robeson, said. Mr. Robeson wrote two books about his father and created an archive of his writing and films. He aimed to teach new generations about his father’s radical politics and criticized those he thought misrepresented his life, including a 1978 Broadway play starring James Earl Jones, which he protested. Read more.